Fire Emblem Engage - 20th January 2023

[ryodi]

 

 

Divine Edition is £89.99

 

 

It's looks a lot like Three Houses unsurprisingly.

[Qazimod]

Is it called Engage because there are more waifus to marry? I'll get my coat.

[HarMGM]

According to some leaks that came earlier in the year, this is going for a more classic series vibe rather the 3 houses. A good example of that can be seen that critical animations return with having unique animations rather then the cut-out style that premiered in Awakening.

 

A few other tidbits from the same leak:

Spoiler

-Incorporates free-roaming elements from a cancelled Wii FE that would have had you explore villages.

-Single route

-Co-developed by Gust

 

[Wiper]

So, awful protagonist visual design aside, the previews for this are sounding pretty promising: based on the opening 8 chapters at least, it seems like the game is a little more 'traditional' Fire Emblem, with less in the way of extra-curricular activities between combat, a more linear campaign, and the return of the weapon triangle. Also, it looks far nicer than Three Houses, which pleases me.

 

Now, whether all that translates to a satisfying game remains to be seen, but I'm hoping for the best — and not just because Nintendo have taken my preorder money!

[Stanley]

I quite liked the look of Three Houses, this does look a lot slicker though and smoother running. 

[deerokus]

I think the big difference is the Kou Shibusawa team at Koei did the bulk of the work on Three Houses, they specialise in interesting but fiddly, repetitive and drab strategy games like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. That game has *way* too much filler.

 

This one seems to be much more of an in-house effort at Intelligent Systems. Which is good. I think there was a rumour that Gust (the Atelier games) did some of the visuals which I guess might make sense.

[Wiper]

23 minutes ago, Stanley said:

I quite liked the look of Three Houses, this does look a lot slicker though and smoother running. 

 

Yeah, I didn't think Three Houses was ugly, but it always felt a bit... rickety. This looks to have really tightened things up in terms of aliasing and performance.

[LaveDisco]

If this is a Fire Emblem without the chaff of the School, I'm getting it day one.

[Vorgot]

It looks a lot nicer than 3 houses and though the school stuff was fun to a point, there was just too much to do so it became a chore. I've used a voucher on this, its preloaded now.....

[Strafe]

Given the number of sponsored ads that I’ve seen for this game I’m sure that even if I end up buying it I’ll lose them money as a customer.

[Hexx]

IGN - 9/10

https://www.ign.com/articles/fire-emblem-engage-review

Eurogamer - Recommended

https://www.eurogamer.net/fire-emblem-engage-review-a-sideways-step-for-the-strategy-series-that-celebrates-the-classics

[Keyboard Koala]

Has there ever been a bad Fire Emblem game?

[Wiper]

According to reviews, or in reality?* I earnestly believe that the mainline 3DS games (Awakening and Fates) are Bad games that completely fail to grasp the strengths of the series, but it's fair to say I'm in a minority there, and the reviews certainly don't reflect it.

 

Otherwise, there's a wide acceptance that the Western DS/Gamecube/Wii entries are weaker examples of the original formula. Not helped by them having all the aesthetic charm of a washed up squid. (to be fair, Path of Radiance is a solid entry, it just suffers for its visuals and its lack of portability. Which makes me suddenly very curious to see if it runs well on Steam Deck...)

 

*aka. my opinion

[StumpyJohn]

The 3DS games were so tedious that they put me off the series ever since.  Huge amounts of skip, skip, skip past interminable chat between shit characters followed by short amounts of basic and thin tactical combat sealed its fate.

 

TBH Intelligent Systems/ Nintendo effectively abandoning the vastly superior Advance Wars series has not helped either.

[deerokus]

33 minutes ago, Wiper said:

According to reviews, or in reality?* I earnestly believe that the mainline 3DS games (Awakening and Fates) are Bad games that completely fail to grasp the strengths of the series, but it's fair to say I'm in a minority there, and the reviews certainly don't reflect it.

 

Otherwise, there's a wide acceptance that the Western DS/Gamecube/Wii entries are weaker examples of the original formula. Not helped by them having all the aesthetic charm of a washed up squid. (to be fair, Path of Radiance is a solid entry, it just suffers for its visuals and its lack of portability. Which makes me suddenly very curious to see if it runs well on Steam Deck...)

 

*aka. my opinion

It runs perfectly on steam deck. At a higher resolution too!

 

 

I'm surprised that Eurogamer review referred to Three Houses as some sort of modern masterpiece RPG.  It's messy and bloated to hell. I *hated* how the story was spread out across multiple mostly-similar play throughs.

[ox1973]

Yeah, Awakening and Fates are the weakest in the series by some distance I would say. I did like Echoes, although that was a remake of Gaiden so not a 3DS original. The three GBA games are the highlights of the series for me. Honourable mention to the Super Famicom games which I would have loved at the time had I played them but only discovered later.

[deerokus]

This one sounds like it very much dials back on the dating sim shite which is music to my ears.

[Wiper]

Three Houses was extremely well-received by critics, extremely commercially successful, and has a rabid fanbase. If you're young and have a lot of time on your hands I can see why it appeals, as it's a huge amount of content, with plenty of replay value, all set on top of a very solid tactics game.

 

For me it was just far too long, with too much busywork (and I wasn't a huge fan of the writing — the EG review of this game noting it as having less nuance is slightly worrying, given Three Houses was about as on the nose in its storytelling as I can imagine), but I can understand why it is so well regarded. I'm just relieved that this one apparently walks things back a little — though the allusions to Awakening's structure (and particularly its optional-but-not-really risk-free levelling battles) make my blood run cold.

[ox1973]

 

4 minutes ago, Wiper said:

I'm just relieved that this one apparently walks things back a little — though the allusions to Awakening's structure (and particularly its optional-but-not-really risk-free levelling battles) make my blood run cold.

 

Agree. The one thing I hated about Awakening more than anything else was the 'optional' levelling up battles. It completely screws up the progression through the game when you can just out level any problem that comes up. I wasn't crazy about the introduction of DLC for the first time either now I think about it.

[Vorgot]

Looking forward to this even more now after seeing reviews today. Thought I would like 3 Houses more but its attempt at more Persona like life sim stuff fell flat for me.

 

This one sounds like much more focused on the battles, so should be fun. The visuals look brighter and less jaggy too which is a winner

[ryodi]

Although it was a remake the last traditional Fire Emblem that was released was Shadow Dragon which tanked and because Awakening saved the series we're going to get variations on that from now on. 

 

You can get some items if you connect to Heroes

 

https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/fire-emblem-engage-how-to-redeem-free-order-of-heroes-item-set

 

 

[deerokus]

I should probably finish up Triangle Strategy before getting this. Now that's a really good tactics game with a decent story.

 

[ryodi]

 

The only time I ever watch the battle animations is in the trailers because they are the first thing I turn off when starting the game.

[Keyboard Koala]

[Stanley]

8’s and 9’s across the board review wise. General consensus being less story and more game play, and the game play is some of the best Fire Emblem to date. Sounds alright. 

[Dig Dug]

To add to the earlier discussion. There are bad Fire Emblem games, but there are no Fire Emblem titles that are bad games.
Mystery of the Emblem, Genealogy of the Holy War, Blazing Sword and Fates Conquest are examples what many would classify as good Fire Emblem games.
Awakening, Fates Birthright and Fates Revelation are the bad Fire Emblem games because the strategy gaming aspect take a complete backseat to all the other features.

Everything in between depends on taste. I think Echoes is very good, some don't. Shadow Dragon I think has excellent gameplay but others find it too feature lacking and devoid of character. Three Houses has a heavy Persona influence which is going to divide people who don't have 300 hours to spare beating all 4 campaigns (including new game maddening difficulty) + DLC like I did.

Reading that Engage is focusing on just being a Fire Emblem game has made me look forward to it as up until this week I had no urgency to play it at all.

[Popo]

12 hours ago, Dig Dug said:

Fates Birthright and Fates Revelation

 

Is FE Fates positioned like a Pokemon game?  I.e. two versions of the same game with subtle differences?

[Wiper]

Three different versions, each a different storyline. So, a somewhat similar conceit to Three Houses, but you pay per route.

[scottcr]

Getting this day EIGHT

 

would be day one but I’m fucking SKINT

[Dig Dug]

1 hour ago, Popo said:

 

Is FE Fates positioned like a Pokemon game?  I.e. two versions of the same game with subtle differences?

Each version of Fates is a separate campaign with its own roster and maps.

Birthright is for beginners (jokingly called “Birthrout” by fans due to every objective being to rout the map). Conquest is for hardcore’s. Revelation is a series of gimmicks that pleases no one.